


So Woe Shall Go Past

by Delphi



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Dementia, Drama, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-12
Updated: 2003-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war is over and Severus is left to tend the ruins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Woe Shall Go Past

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2003 run of the ADXSS Buggering Bee. Challenge: _After the final battle._

Severus fusses over the pillows, and the sheets, and the quilt. He trims the wick in the oil lamp and refills the water glass from the pitcher on the night table. He stands on his tiptoes to straighten the painting of a sunny meadow that hangs over the bed.

"Don't," Albus protests feebly, although his eyes are fixed on the ceiling and he seems as yet unaware of Severus's presence.

The children are playing outside today, and the sound of their laughter drifts up to the eye of the tower, slipping in between the bars on the window. Severus shudders at the sound of their voices in this place and tips the painting askew again.

Albus is propped up with pillows against the headboard, looking grey. He hasn't been sleeping, and Severus is under orders from Poppy to come do whatever it is he does to cheer him up.

He pull up his chair beside Albus's be. "Do you remember when we finally went to Venice? I found myself thinking of that today."

For a moment, Albus's lips move silently, and then the rust clears from his throat. "No," he croaks. "I've never been to Venice."

Severus rolls his eyes.

"Of course you have," he says, his tone carefully impatient. "You always said we'd go, after...after it was all over. We went by boat, remember? One of those awful ones where they expect you to eat dinner with all the other idiots and make small talk. You lured me into a supply cupboard for a liaison. Am I to believe you don't remember that?"

Albus stares up at the ceiling as though the correct answer is written there.

"Well, you did," Severus insists. "We did. We sailed all the way to Venice."

"What was the boat called?" Albus asks.

Severus leans back in his chair and stares up at the ceiling, folding his hands over his stomach. Why does Albus always insist on names? He hasn't the mind for names.

"The name of the boat was...The Mermaid. I was seasick the first night. They played music at dinner, and you tried to make me dance the foxtrot. When I wouldn't, you flirted with that woman whose cabin was down the hall from ours. You were quite shameless about it."

The outline of a smile appears on Albus's face. "Who?"

Severus catches the smile and is pleased. "I don't recall." He shrugs. "Why should I remember her name? She was only a silly old witch with vulgar robes slit down to her breakfast."

"What was her name?"

"I told you, I don't remember."

"Please," Albus says. He is breathing through his mouth. His dull eyes almost seem to flicker. After four years, the red in them is finally beginning to fade, but as Poppy has told them time and time again, that is all the improvement to be expected.

"All right," Severus says. "Her name was Margaret." It's his mother's name, but he doesn't expect Albus will remember that.

"Margaret," Albus says, sighing briefly.

"Yes, Margaret," Severus says. "And you made an ass of yourself around her, but I think she liked you. I remember I once caught you two at the window together, gazing out at the stars."

"Was I terrible?"

"No more than I was. I was still rather trainsick and doing my best to ruin our holiday. You bought her drinks, though. Every night."

"What did she drink?"

"Margaritas," Severus says and, hearing the note of sarcasm in his own voice, reels himself back in. It doesn't do to get sloppy.

"Were you very angry?"

"No. I was a pain about it, but I wasn't angry."

He picks up the glass of water and puts it to Albus's lips, tilting it until Albus swallows. A trickle of water slides down his chin. How strange, even after all this time, to see it clean-shaven, but it's easier to keep him clean this way. He wipes Albus's mouth with his own sleeve and then takes a sip for himself.

"In Venice..." he continues, "...we stayed at...some hotel. The Palazzo something."

Although Severus has indeed been on a dreadful ship before, he has never been to Venice, and he hesitates, conjuring from whole cloth. "It was on the sea, right on a white sand beach. I sunburned terribly."

"I remember," Albus says absently.

Severus smiles faintly to himself. "It was your fault. You're the one who convinced me to swim naked. You know I had trouble saying no to you."

"Did you really?"

"Yes," Severus says, closing his eyes. "Always."

"Always?"

"We toured the city, of course. We took a gondola to a wizarding market, and you bought me twenty drops of hyrda's blood. I still have the phial. It was beautifully made."

"Let me see it."

"I don't have it with me," Severus says. "I'll bring it tomorrow," he promises, knowing that Albus will have forgotten by then.

The sound of Albus's laboured breathing is beginning to tire him.

"We ate seafood every night, and you made me try a bite of every dessert you ordered, and at moonrise the sea breeze came in through the window of our room. You ordered wine brought to the room, a different kind every night."

"Yes," Albus whispers. "What did we do then?"

He digs his nails into his palms. "What do you think? I remember you said I looked at home in Venice. You said that I looked like a patrician of old. We...we pretended that I was. We wore the bed sheets like togas."

"The sea," Albus says suddenly.

"What about it?"

"It came in through the window."

"Yes," Severus says. "As I said."

"I can hear it." There is something oddly insistent in Albus's tone.

"Can you?"

he asks uneasily.

"It came in through the window," Albus whispers wretchedly.

"After that—" Severus continues, but Albus cuts him off.

"Do you hear it?"

"No," he says. "Not right now.

"_Listen_."

Severus listens. The children are still chattering away outside, but below their din, he can almost hear something else: a low, rushing sound.

"Do you hear it?" Albus asks again.

"Yes," Severus says faintly, frowning.

"Oh," Albus says. "Good."

Severus closes his eyes, still chasing after that sound.

"I'm tired," Albus says. "I want to go to sleep."

"Then go to sleep," Severus says. "Get your rest." And as always, part of him hopes that this time, finally, Albus will not wake up.

"Will you visit me again?" Albus asks.

"Yes. I'll be back tomorrow."

"Will you tell me about Venice again?"

He sighs. "I'll tell you about the time you dragged me on safari. Or the time we saw the Northern Lights. We didn't just go to Venice, you know. We went all sorts of places. We saw everything."

He kisses Albus's cheek and then gets up and walks as far as the doorway before, as ever, pausing and looking back.

Albus is already drifting into sleep, his eyes shut and breathing going quieter with every struggling rasp of his lungs. Severus stares at him for a moment and then goes down the corridor, passing Minerva, who watches him carefully. He shakes his head at her unasked question. No, there is no change. He knows she is no longer asking whether there is an improvement, but if Albus will die soon.

He makes his way down to the dungeons, past the Great Hall where Albus once held court, past the hidden staircase to what was once their bedroom, past the statue of Harry Potter, the conquering hero.

There was a time when Severus believed he couldn't possibly hate the boy more than he did. Before the final battle. Before Potter saved Albus's life. Before the wizarding world's saviour walked away from Hogwarts forever, consigning all who remained to the hell of caring for whatever was left in Albus's body after three days in the Dark Lord's tender care.

Severus pauses and then spits on Potter's marble feet.

He begins shivering as he descends into the lower levels of the castle, into his office where the walls are lined with a thousand stoppered phials, the merciful deaths he brews but can never quite bring himself to put in Albus's water. No one would blame him; Minerva has said as much in quiet, frank tones before bursting into tears.

But no—no, when the end comes, he must be guiltless, or it will never truly be over. More than anything, Severus thinks, this needs to be over.

He sits down at his desk and pulls out a sheaf of quizzes to mark. The words blur and run together, twisting across the pages like the Venice canals. He rubs his eyes, but they refuse to clear. He'll just rest them for a moment, he thinks, and lays his head down on the cool desktop. His thoughts are of hot places a thousand miles away from this Scottish winter. He imagines burning sands and cool, sweet shade, and the sound of the sea, which is the sound of blood rushing in one's ears, the sound of Cruciatus.

Severus sleeps and dreams of tomorrow's lies.


End file.
